I got an email from a friend one day about our making the decision to take our journey to the ends of the world.
Ken wrote: You’ve probably heard this before: While the trip itself is fascinating, it’s also the decision to do the trip that blows a lot of people’s minds, or creates the feeling of “Wow, I wish I could do that, be able to make that decision.”
We’re all so tied to the pillars of our everyday life – mortgage, school calendars, adult/child activities – that we have trouble imagining even the possibility of untethering ourselves from the routine and preparing for a Great Adventure.
I’ve spent hours thinking about that idea. How does one make the decision to march to your own drummer? How did we go about making the decision to put our children on bicycle seats and head off to the ends of the world?
What was it that finally spurred us on to jump over the edge and just do it?
Quite a few long-distance bike travelers say the hardest part of their entire journey was pulling out of their driveway. Although I agree that that’s a tough step, I think the hardest part is making the decision to leave that driveway in the first place. As Ken said, how do we drag ourselves away from all the trappings of modern society and go?
It’s a tough question to answer because there are many answers. For a journey of large magnitude, there will never be one, single, definitive answer. I think almost every parent in the US dreams of dropping out of society to travel with their children. Most of them never do it.
For some, the dream becomes important enough at some point that they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. And yes, there will always be sacrifices in living your dream. For some, there is one overriding event that propels them into action. It may be the death of a parent or some other life-altering event. For others, it is just a series of small, almost inconsequential events that somehow fit together to encourage and empower them to do it. That’s how it was for us.
Our decision to drop out of what was expected of us to instead ride bikes around the world came a few years before we flew to Alaska to pedal to Argentina. Back in the spring of 2006 we were tired of spending more time with other people’s kids than with our own. My mother had a kidney removed due to cancer and John’s dad died. The tsunami happened while we were living in Malaysia. A few incidents occurred which made us realize we weren’t getting younger and neither were our children. If we didn’t take advantage of now, we never would. So we did.
We took the boys out of school and spent their third grade year cycling the USA and Mexico. That year turned into a prelude of what was to come, a warm-up journey I suppose you could call it. It was intended as a one-year career break but morphed into an alternative lifestyle.
Making the decision to take that one-year trip was hard. We agonized over the decision. There were all the “what if’s” that swam around in our minds: What if we got in an accident? What if the kids hated it? What if everyone thought we had gone over the deep end? Those were all perfectly valid thoughts and I suspect every person embarking on a journey of any sort will mull over them.
When children are involved, such thoughts become even more important. Can we as parents rightfully yank our kids out of school and plop them on a bike for a year? Or more? What kind of parents were we to even think of doing such a thing? I mean, parents just don’t do that! Or do they?
Ultimately, we had to come to grips with the whole pros/cons aspect of the decision. Yes, there were cons. A whole list of them. The boys would miss out on school field trips and Boy Scout campouts. They would miss soccer teams and swim team. Sleepovers with friends, movie day at the mall, and friends that lasted longer than a few weeks. They would miss them all.
But there were also a whole lot of pros. Spending time together as a family was magical. Learning about the world by actually being there and seeing it firsthand rather than through a social studies book was far more effective learning. Gaining confidence, perseverance, and physical strength were additional benefits.
For us, the pros outweighed the cons. I say, for us, because I realize that each family has their own unique circumstances to factor in, and each family will make completely different lists of pros and cons. But for our family, our journey to the end of the world was the right thing.
The important thing is to evaluate your wants, dreams, and desires and then work toward them. It’s all about baby steps, but making the decision to do it is the biggest baby step of them all. –By Nancy Sathre-Vogel/The Washington Times/November 29, 2011
Foot Note: Nancy Sathre-Vogel is just a mom who decided to take a bike ride. On the longest road in the world. Some people say she's exceptionally brave. Others say she's outrageously foolish. She doesn't think she's either. She's just a mom who wanted an adventure and time with her kids. Her most recent adventure was cycling from Alaska to Argentina, a journey she documented at www.familyonbikes.org
Ken wrote: You’ve probably heard this before: While the trip itself is fascinating, it’s also the decision to do the trip that blows a lot of people’s minds, or creates the feeling of “Wow, I wish I could do that, be able to make that decision.”
We’re all so tied to the pillars of our everyday life – mortgage, school calendars, adult/child activities – that we have trouble imagining even the possibility of untethering ourselves from the routine and preparing for a Great Adventure.
I’ve spent hours thinking about that idea. How does one make the decision to march to your own drummer? How did we go about making the decision to put our children on bicycle seats and head off to the ends of the world?
What was it that finally spurred us on to jump over the edge and just do it?
Quite a few long-distance bike travelers say the hardest part of their entire journey was pulling out of their driveway. Although I agree that that’s a tough step, I think the hardest part is making the decision to leave that driveway in the first place. As Ken said, how do we drag ourselves away from all the trappings of modern society and go?
It’s a tough question to answer because there are many answers. For a journey of large magnitude, there will never be one, single, definitive answer. I think almost every parent in the US dreams of dropping out of society to travel with their children. Most of them never do it.
For some, the dream becomes important enough at some point that they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. And yes, there will always be sacrifices in living your dream. For some, there is one overriding event that propels them into action. It may be the death of a parent or some other life-altering event. For others, it is just a series of small, almost inconsequential events that somehow fit together to encourage and empower them to do it. That’s how it was for us.
Our decision to drop out of what was expected of us to instead ride bikes around the world came a few years before we flew to Alaska to pedal to Argentina. Back in the spring of 2006 we were tired of spending more time with other people’s kids than with our own. My mother had a kidney removed due to cancer and John’s dad died. The tsunami happened while we were living in Malaysia. A few incidents occurred which made us realize we weren’t getting younger and neither were our children. If we didn’t take advantage of now, we never would. So we did.
We took the boys out of school and spent their third grade year cycling the USA and Mexico. That year turned into a prelude of what was to come, a warm-up journey I suppose you could call it. It was intended as a one-year career break but morphed into an alternative lifestyle.
Making the decision to take that one-year trip was hard. We agonized over the decision. There were all the “what if’s” that swam around in our minds: What if we got in an accident? What if the kids hated it? What if everyone thought we had gone over the deep end? Those were all perfectly valid thoughts and I suspect every person embarking on a journey of any sort will mull over them.
When children are involved, such thoughts become even more important. Can we as parents rightfully yank our kids out of school and plop them on a bike for a year? Or more? What kind of parents were we to even think of doing such a thing? I mean, parents just don’t do that! Or do they?
Ultimately, we had to come to grips with the whole pros/cons aspect of the decision. Yes, there were cons. A whole list of them. The boys would miss out on school field trips and Boy Scout campouts. They would miss soccer teams and swim team. Sleepovers with friends, movie day at the mall, and friends that lasted longer than a few weeks. They would miss them all.
But there were also a whole lot of pros. Spending time together as a family was magical. Learning about the world by actually being there and seeing it firsthand rather than through a social studies book was far more effective learning. Gaining confidence, perseverance, and physical strength were additional benefits.
For us, the pros outweighed the cons. I say, for us, because I realize that each family has their own unique circumstances to factor in, and each family will make completely different lists of pros and cons. But for our family, our journey to the end of the world was the right thing.
The important thing is to evaluate your wants, dreams, and desires and then work toward them. It’s all about baby steps, but making the decision to do it is the biggest baby step of them all. –By Nancy Sathre-Vogel/The Washington Times/November 29, 2011
Foot Note: Nancy Sathre-Vogel is just a mom who decided to take a bike ride. On the longest road in the world. Some people say she's exceptionally brave. Others say she's outrageously foolish. She doesn't think she's either. She's just a mom who wanted an adventure and time with her kids. Her most recent adventure was cycling from Alaska to Argentina, a journey she documented at www.familyonbikes.org
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